Shareholders of Rubicon Heritage Services Ltd (l-r) Colm Moloney, Louise Baker, Ross MacLeod & Damian Shiels

Headland Archaeology (Ireland) Ltd announced a fresh start after the company management agreed terms with Headland Group Ltd to purchase the Irish subsidiary. The business would be rebranded as Rubicon Heritage Services.

The new owners, based at the company's Little Island headquarters near Cork, expressed confidence in the future and plans to expand into the UK market. The company retained its permanent staff and had recruited additional temporary archaeologists to meet increased demand in Ireland.

Rubicon offered a full range of archaeological services to the construction and development industry. Director Colm Moloney described the management buy-out as an opportunity both to build on renewed domestic work and to enter the UK market as an independent company.

At the time the company was running field projects across Cork, Kerry, Limerick, Tipperary, Sligo, Galway, Dublin and Louth and was completing eight books on earlier projects.

The new shareholders were Colm Moloney, Damian Shiels, Ross MacLeod and Louise Baker.